Owed money... confused on W-4 status

[DavidM1987]

My wife and I both work. We make roughly the same amount, have no children, and we file jointly. This year we owed a lot in taxes to both IRS and state. We are taking a look at out W4 to see why. I had my status as "Married" on both state/federal. My wife had "Single" on federal and "Married" on state.  Should we change our federal/state to "Single" since we both work full-time (to avoid too little being taken out)? I would imagine that since we are married... and filing jointly... that married on our W4 would be the proper selection... I am not sure why we owe though if that is the case. 

[DMarkM1 · Accepted solution]

You are correct.  Each of your W4s generate withholding independent of the other so the only way to coordinate is for you to do that.  If both W4s are Married Filing Jointly with no other adjustments then typically the result will be less taxes withheld than desired as each one will only withhold based on the income from that employer.  Having your spouse's w4 indicate "Single" was a step in the right direction. 

A suggestion for your situation with incomes about the same for both jobs is for both of you to select the box in step 2c on both of your W4s.  This results in higher withholding rates on both W4s.  

Having one of the W4s indicate filing as single is an added withholding amount as well but may reduce your take home more than you like.  

You might update your W4 step 2c for both with both indicating Married Filing Joint.  In July/August timeframe use this calculator to see where you are at and make an adjustment to finish out the year.